Plantasia: Music From The Orbit Of COATL-IV is a concept album composed as the original soundtrack for Cave Bear Games’ new video game Plantasia.
Wanting to dig into the emotional narrative of the game’s setting is what drew me into this project the most. Growing happy little plants while floating through cold, dark isolation presented such an interesting opportunity of duality for me – having a cause and purpose to grow lush organic life, contrasted against the harsh oppression of the loneliness and solitude of outer space. The comfort of cultivating plants is such a primal joy, and the album journeys through layers of delicate, whimsical delight while working through deep overtones of the great void. I wanted to create a narrative journey while also paying homage to the eponymous inspiration for the game: Mort Garson’s 1976 album Mother Earth’s Plantasia.
I explored the sonic marriage of organic and synthetic sounds to represent the gardening and plant growth happening alongside the orbital space station elements. Using warm analogue synths throughout is my tribute to Mort’s original vision, and bringing in acoustic elements, real instruments, digital signal processing, live reverbs, etc., really opened up a rich playpen for me.
Garson’s album Mother Earth’s Plantasia (Warm Earth Music for Plants and the People Who Love Them) has been a love of mine for more than two decades, since I was a teenager. His brand of deep and rich synthesizer composition, and his Plantasia album in particular, have inspired me as a composer. His album has an interesting distribution story, as it was created for a gardening supply centre in Los Angeles and was made available when purchasing house plants with the instructions to play it for your plants to ensure their health and happiness.
Because of this limited distribution, it wasn’t well known in North America but did end up gaining a cult following of synth nerds in Japan, including a few who would grow up to compose for video games (including The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy). I started writing my own music when I was around 13 years old and I would figure out songs from games like Zelda, Final Fantasy, Donkey Kong, Golden Sun, Chrono Trigger, and Monkey Island. These were my early introduction to understanding how to build musical ideas that I connected with, and the opportunity to create a soundtrack paying homage to Garson was irresistible.
Floating through the void, this project left me thinking, “Oh man, am I ever alone out here, but hey, these plants are cute.”
